The present invention relates generally to transportation and regulatory compliance of compounds and other materials. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method to classify and provide the specifications, documentation and instructions to properly process, package and transport regulated and non-regulated materials.
Generation and use of hazardous materials and/or substances in the United States has grown steadily in the last 45 years and is now estimated to be about 270 million metric tons per year. According to one definition, a xe2x80x9chazardous substancexe2x80x9d is any substance or mixture of substances that may cause substantial personal injury or substantial illness during or as a proximate result of any customary or reasonably foreseeable handling or use, including reasonably foreseeable ingestion by children, if the substance: (1) is a toxic agent or reproductive toxin; (2) is corrosive; (3) is an irritant; (4) is a strong sensitizer; (5) is flammable, combustible or explosive; (6) is pyrophoric; (7) is a carcinogen, hepatoxin, neprotixin or neurotoxin; (8) is an agent that acts on the hematopoietic system; (9) is an agent that damages the lungs, skin, eyes or mucous membranes; (10) is a compressed gas; (11) is an organic peroxide; (12) is an oxidizer; (13) is unstable, reactive or water-reactive; (14) generates pressure through decomposition, heat or other means; (15) is sufficiently radioactive to require labeling as such; (16) is a toy or other article intended for use by children and presents an electrical, mechanical or thermal hazard; or (17) is specially listed as a hazardous substance by a state or federal agency having jurisdiction over such substances.
Monitoring or tracking of the receipt, handling and disposition of hazardous materials in the workplace is now standard in most businesses that handle one or more such materials. Such tracking often requires submission of prescribed reports to an appropriate federal, state or local agency that monitors compliance with the workplace standards. Many software packages and associated protocols deal with individual or narrowly defined groups of tasks, such as preparation and promulgation of Materials Safety Data Statements (MSDS), monitoring of accumulation and disposal of hazardous wastes, and the like. These packages do not, however, offer an integrated package that addresses classifying, packaging and transporting regulated materials and/or substances.
There are numerous federal mandates relating to the use, handling and/or transportation of hazardous materials. Illustrative are the following.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (xe2x80x9cTSCAxe2x80x9d), originally passed in 1965, together with the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (xe2x80x9cFHSAxe2x80x9d), passed in 1966, and the Resource Recovery Act (xe2x80x9cRRAxe2x80x9d), passed in 1970, were the initial federal laws governing generation and handling of toxic and other hazardous materials. Under TSCA, the Environmental Protection Agency (xe2x80x9cE.P.A.xe2x80x9d) is responsible for reviewing any chemical substance that is or will be produced in sufficient quantity that it may cause significant acute or chronic human exposure. Testing is performed with respect to human health and the environment and focuses particularly on possible risk of serious harm to humans from (i) cancer, (ii) genetic mutations and (iii) birth defects.
If the EPA finds that the risk to human health or to the environment is sufficiently great, the E.P.A. may: (i) limit the amount of the chemical to be manufactured or used; (ii) prohibit a particular use; (iii) require placement of warning labels on all containers of the chemical; (iv) require placement of public notices of use; and (v) regulate commercial use and/or disposal of the chemical.
Any person, including a company, that manufactures or imports more than 10,000 pounds or more of a chemical named on an E.P.A. Chemical Substances Inventory List is subject to the reporting requirements under TSCA. These reporting requirements include: (i) updating of a list of all chemicals present on a site, at four-year intervals or more frequently; (ii) submission (to the E.P.A.) of a Premanufacture Notice and relevant test data for any new chemical, at least 90 days before manufacturing or importing the chemical; (iii) submission of a Notice Of Intent To Import or To Export a listed chemical, within seven days after entering into a contract to import or export the chemical, if the chemical is known to be mutagenic, teratogenic or carcinogenic or is known to cause chronic health or environmental problems; (iv) reporting of a significant new use for a chemical already on the E.P.A. list; (v) reporting of known significant adverse reactions caused by handling or discharge of any chemical used by the reporting entity; (vi) submission of any unpublished health and/or safety studies on certain chemicals used by the reporting entity; (vii) notification of any substantial risk of injury to human health or the environment, due within 15 days after the reporting entity first receives information on the risk; (viii) submission of information on production of, use of and exposure to certain chemicals to an Interagency Testing Committee for analysis by the Committee; (xi) submission of specified comprehensive information on a fixed format reporting form; (x) submission of results of test, if any, performed by the reporting entity on certain heptahalogenated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans, within 90 days after a test, if a positive result is obtained; and (xi) submission of a Notification of PCB Activity form by any storer, transporter or disposer of polychlorinated biphenyl (xe2x80x9cPCBxe2x80x9d) waste. TSCA also sets forth certain requirements for labeling of, disposal of and recordkeeping for certain chemicals, such as PCBs.
The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (xe2x80x9cHMTAxe2x80x9d), passed in 1974, is administered jointly by the Department of Transportation (xe2x80x9cD.O.T.xe2x80x9d), established in 1966, and the E.P.A., established in 1969. The HMTA sets forth 15 xe2x80x9chazard classesxe2x80x9d of hazardous materials (e.g., flammable liquids, high explosives, poisons), plus five classes of xe2x80x9cother regulated materials,xe2x80x9d and sets forth laws and corresponding regulations relating to: (i) identification, listing, labeling and placarding of hazardous materials; (ii) recordkeeping requirements for handling hazardous materials, including Uniform Hazardous Material Manifests for shipment of hazardous wastes; (iii) requirements for generators and transporters of hazardous materials and for owners and operators of specially defined treatment, storage and disposal facilities (xe2x80x9cTSDFsxe2x80x9d); (iv) permit and pre-transport notification requirements and transportation routing for all facilities that generate or transport hazardous materials; (v) requirements for tracking the movement of hazardous materials; (vi) containers to be used for transport; (vii) incident notification and other procedures for handling and reporting accidental and intentional discharges of hazardous materials; and (viii) testing and standards for operators of hazardous material transport vehicles. Under the HMTA, a xe2x80x9cgeneratorxe2x80x9d of a hazardous waste is defined simply as xe2x80x9cany person whose act first causes a hazardous waste to become subject to regulation.xe2x80x9d
Transportation modes covered under the HMTA include movement of a hazardous material by air, rail, water and highway. The D.O.T. is also authorized to inspect generator and transporter facilities, vehicles and records to insure compliance.
The federal mandates, with their demanding regulatory requirements, have created a need for sophisticated information and transportation management solutions to assist industry and other impacted entities in the compliance process. In recent years, software applications have emerged that attempt to manage selected aspects of compliance, such as MSDS or Hazardous Waste Manifest information. The limited scope of these applications, coupled with the limitations of the software supporting such applications, has led to a plethora of limited solutions.
Several applications have attempted to manage all aspects of environmental compliance by grouping together several mini-applications or modules. However, managing the universe of environmental compliance information requires management of the compliance reports as well as the information from which the compliance reports were prepared. Indeed, in many instances, the information is tightly interrelated. For example, an accidental release of Parathion at a facility where it is manufactured has environmental as well as health and safety consequences. The information that results from the release is critical for the accurate preparation of regulatory agency reports. Invariably, each accident requires reporting to two or more regulatory agencies; each regulatory agency is responsible for a different element of the accident. The noted application packages that claim a xe2x80x9ccomprehensivexe2x80x9d approach do not have the capability of sharing information between different functions from a common information store or managing the information dynamically. The application packages are, in reality, fragmented and offer no synergistic advantages over their component parts.
Inventory management systems currently available tend to be of two varieties. The first variety ignores the packaging and transportation of hazardous materials and most or all effects of, and responsibilities under, the hazardous material laws and regulations. The noted systems merely track the amount of a chemical present in inventory, work-in-process and finished products.
A second variety focuses on a few of the functions of inventory control, manufacturing, waste disposal, etc. and accounts for a few of the applicable hazardous material laws. For example, AV Systems offers a plurality of stand-alone modules for hazardous material reporting. The MSDS+System from AV Systems is designed for O.S.H.A. Hazards Communications Standard compliance, preparation of MSDSs and the associated warning labels, and tracking of employee training. Form R covers toxic release inventory reporting under SARA Title III and multi-year comparisons for PPA reporting. VOC tracks air permits and emissions. WASTE tracks cradle-to-grave waste handling and reporting. INVENTORY records chemical inventory transactions. A LOCASL module offers compliance procedures for compliance with state and local rules.
Envirogenics CHEM Master provides a database on 4700 of the most commonly used hazardous substances (categorized by substance names) and D.O.T. Emergency Response guidelines; and WASTE db tracks waste materials, provides an historical record of treatment, storage and disposal activities by TSDFs, and prints state-specific waste manifests.
CHEMMIX offers several programs that determine chemical incompatibilities and potential adverse reactions based upon fire, explosion, heat, toxic gas emission, violent polymerization, flammability, etc.
ERM Computer Services"" Enflex Data provides 16 separate modules covering facilities description, chemical inventories, SARA Title II Form R reporting, container and permit tracking, and water and air data.
General Research FLOW GEMINI provides hazardous material report generation, using a blank screen on which the user designs the reporting forms to be used. Some standard report forms are included with this software.
Imagetrak software""s MSDS ExPress allows scan-in of MSDS images, which are then attached in an unspecified way to a data base record. Information contained on the scannedin MSDSs can then be queried in a simple question and answer format.
J and H Software offers Process Adviser/NPDES Reporter, which allows management of process data for a waste treatment facility, including solids balances, percent removal and statistical analyses of plant operation parameters.
North American Software provides several individual modules for hazardous material management, including: HAZARD Basic Manifest Management System for E.P.A. Uniform Hazardous Waste Manifest tracking; Hazard Basic Waste Tag Management System for report generation based on waste container tags; HAZARD Basic Operation Log Management System for report generation based on activity tags; and HAZARD MSDS Document Management System for creating a database for hazardous material document images.
OSHA-SOFT""s Compliance Manager provides a link between MSDSs and chemical inventory information, to facilitate compliance with the O.S.H.A. Hazards Communication Standard.
Altermative Systems, Inc.""s system, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,726,884, includes eight (8) integrated modules or functional groupings for in-house management, handling and tracking of hazardous materials.
Although the noted software packages appear to afford detailed treatment of hazardous materials, the software packages have numerous drawbacks and disadvantages, including the lack of effective integration by and between the modules and any means of automatic material classification.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a computer-based hazardous material classification and compliance system that provides the material classification, specifications, documentation and instructions to properly process, package and transport regulated and non-regulated materials.
It is another object of the invention to provide a computer-based hazardous material classification and compliance system that includes a classification module that automatically classifies regulated and non-regulated material.
It is another object of the invention to provide a computer-based hazardous material classification and compliance system that includes a scheduling module which facilitates the scheduling of regulated and non-regulated material packaging and transport.
It is another object of the invention to provide a computer-based hazardous material classification and compliance system that generates and archives all records and modifications thereto required under applicable federal and state hazardous substance laws.
It is another object of the invention to provide a computer-based hazardous material classification and compliance system that includes a self-auditing function.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a computer-based hazardous material classification and compliance system that includes an emergenicy response function for identification, tracking and handling of hazardous substances.
In accordance with the above objects and those that will be mentioned and will become apparent below, the Hazardous Material Classification and Compliance System, in accordance with this invention comprises a computer system having processing means, data storage means, display means and input means; first prompting means, for prompting on said display means for user entry via said input means, and for storing in said data storage means, the identity and history of information corresponding to an originator of a request for material; second prompting means, for prompting on said display means for user entry via said input means, and for storing in said data storage means, the identity and history information corresponding to a recipient of said material; third prompting means, for prompting on said display means for user entry via said input means, and for storing in said data storage means, the properties and characteristics of said material; classification means responsive to said material properties and characteristics for classifying said material, and for storing said material classification in said data storage means; fourth prompting means, for prompting on said display means for user entry via said input means, and for storing in said data storage means, a packaging and shipping schedule for said material; and fifth prompting means, for prompting on said display means for user entry via said input means, and for storing in said data storage means, the packaging materials required for transport of said material.